At least 11 killed in suicide attack on Pakistani court

Pakistani policemen arrive to cordon off a local court building after a suicide attack in Islamabad on March 3, 2014.

AFP: Aamir Qureshi

Pakistani police say at least 11 people have been killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on a court complex in the capital, Islamabad.

A loud explosion was heard across central Islamabad just after 9.00am local time, followed by bursts of gunfire.

Police say at least 30 people were injured, many critically, in the attack. A judge was among those killed.

It was not immediately clear who was behind Monday's attack, which came two days after the Pakistan Taliban announced a month-long ceasefire aimed at restarting stalled peace talks with the government.

The government began peace talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) last month but the dialogue broke down after militants killed 23 kidnapped soldiers.

The military responded with a series of air strikes in the volatile northwestern tribal areas that left more than 100 insurgents dead, according to security officials.

Despite near-daily attacks by the militants and air strikes by the armed forces, Pakistan's negotiators have insisted that the door for talks is still open.

The Taliban's ceasefire announcement on Saturday was met with scepticism by analysts, who said it may have been a tactic to allow them to regroup after they had suffered heavy losses in air strikes.

The government has struck peace agreements with the Pakistani Taliban several times in the past but they have failed to yield lasting results.

The umbrella militant group emerged in response to a raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad, but Islamist violence in the country began to surge in 2004 following the army's deployment in the tribal areas